- Both stores give new sellers ad credit, a 5% New-to-Prime referral fee on the first 100 FBA units, free storage for 30 units and up to 5% back on branded sales.
- Saudi-based sellers get 30% off referral fees for 60 days, on up to SAR 150,000 of sales. List within 20 days of opening your account, and before 31 December 2026.
- Chinese sellers get a USD 50,000 prepaid referral voucher, a USD 1,000 ad coupon and FBA inbound cashback of up to SAR 3,754 per product until 30 December.
- Budget on one referral-fee offer per sale, and count ad credit and free storage as separate savings.
- On a SAR 99 toy, the launch offers are worth close to SAR 5,000 in the first 90 days.
Amazon is paying new sellers to join its Gulf stores this year.
On Amazon.sa and Amazon.ae, a new seller gets free ad credit, a lower referral fee on their first FBA sales, free storage and cash back on branded sales. Saudi-based sellers get an extra 30% off referral fees, and Chinese sellers get a package of their own.
Most of these offers run on a clock. Some start the day you open your account, and the biggest Saudi offer closes on 31 December 2026.
Here's every 2026 incentive, who qualifies, how to claim it and what it's worth on a real product.
What incentives does Amazon offer new Gulf sellers in 2026?
Amazon runs one core package on both Gulf stores, plus extras for local and Chinese sellers. The core package covers your three biggest launch costs: ads, referral fees and storage.
Here's everything on offer right now:
| Incentive | What you get | Amazon.sa | Amazon.ae |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sponsored Products credit | Free ad spend in your first 90 days | SAR 370, plus up to SAR 3,500 | Up to AED 3,700 |
| New-to-Prime discount | 5% referral fee on the first 100 units of each new FBA product, for 120 days | ||
| FBA New Selection | Free storage for the first 30 units of each new FBA product, for up to 90 days | ||
| Brand bonus | Up to 5% back on your first 3.5 million of branded sales, capped at 175,000 | SAR | AED |
| 30% referral discount | 30% off referral fees for 60 days, on up to SAR 150,000 of sales | Saudi-based sellers, until 31 Dec 2026 | |
| DET x Amazon Accelerator | AED 2,000 in ad credit and 6 months of free professional support | Dubai trade licence holders | |
| China package | USD 50,000 referral voucher, USD 1,000 ad coupon, FBA inbound cashback | Chinese sellers | Chinese sellers |
The four core offers work like this:
- Sponsored Products credit. Free money for your first ads, so new products get seen before they have reviews. Sponsored Products are the sponsored listings shoppers see in search results.
- New-to-Prime discount. Your referral fee drops to 5% on the first 100 units of each new FBA product. Oversize items get it on 50 units. The referral fee is Amazon's commission on each sale, usually 10–15%.
- FBA New Selection. No monthly storage fee on your first 30 units of each new product, for up to 90 days. FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) means Amazon stores, packs and delivers your stock.
- Brand bonus. Up to 5% of your branded sales comes back to you, on your first 3.5 million SAR or AED.
So who can claim all this?
Who qualifies for Amazon's new-seller incentives?
Almost every new seller qualifies for the core package. You need three things:
- A new account on that store. The offers apply to your first listings on Amazon.sa or Amazon.ae. Sellers adding a Gulf store from an existing Amazon account count too.
- The Professional plan. Its monthly fee is waived on both stores for now, so this costs nothing.
- FBA for the Prime and storage offers. New-to-Prime and FBA New Selection only cover products you send to Amazon's warehouses.
The brand bonus adds one more step. You need to enrol in Brand Registry within six months, which means owning a registered or pending trademark.
The 30% Saudi discount is narrower. It's only for sellers located in and fulfilling from Saudi Arabia, so cross-border sellers can't claim it. The New-to-Prime rate also only covers products first listed on or after 7 October 2025.
Not sure which Amazon route fits your company? Our guide to how to sell on Amazon Middle East compares local, Global Selling and China routes.
Deadlines: when does each offer end?
Several clocks start the day you open your account. The two biggest offers also have hard end dates this year.
- 1 Jun 2026China FBA cashback opens
New Chinese sellers earn cashback on every unit Amazon receives, until 30 December.
- 1 Jul 202630% Saudi discount opens
Saudi-based sellers get 30% off referral fees for 60 days.
- Day 0You open your account
Enrol in FBA New Selection before your first shipment. The 20-day listing window starts now.
- By day 20List your first products
Listing inside this window keeps Saudi-based sellers eligible for the 30% discount.
- Within 90 daysSpend your ad credit
The Sponsored Products credit expires 90 days after you list.
- Within 6 monthsEnrol in Brand Registry
This unlocks the 5% brand bonus.
- 30 Dec 2026China cashback closes
Units must be received within 90 days of creating the shipment.
- 31 Dec 202630% Saudi discount closes
Open your account and list before year-end to claim it.
Today is late October, so a Saudi-based seller who signs up this week still gets most of the 30% window. Wait until December and you'll squeeze it into a few weeks.
How to claim each incentive
Most offers don't apply themselves. You enrol in a few, and the rest switch on when you meet the conditions:
- 1
Register on the Professional plan
Use sellercentral.amazon.sa or sellercentral.amazon.ae, or add the store from your Sell Globally dashboard. Chinese companies register through Amazon Global Selling China.
- 2
Open Seller Rewards and enrol
In Seller Central, the Seller Rewards page shows the new-seller incentives your account is eligible for. Enrol in each one there.
- 3
Enrol in FBA New Selection before your first inbound
Do it before you create the shipment, or your first units pay normal storage.
- 4
List within 20 days (Saudi-based sellers)
Publish full Arabic and English listings for your launch products inside the window to keep the 30% discount.
- 5
Send stock with Send to Amazon
New FBA products then get the 5% New-to-Prime rate on their first 100 units automatically.
- 6
Launch Sponsored Products on the credit
Start one automatic and one manual campaign per hero product.
- 7
Apply for Brand Registry
Submit your trademark in month one. The brand bonus starts once you're enrolled.
The credits and discounts show in your payment reports, so check them after your first settlement. Amazon pays every 14 days.
Ready to plan your ad budget? Our Amazon Ads guide for GCC sellers covers campaign setup and bids.
Worked example: what the incentives are worth on a SAR 99 toy
Say you're a Saudi-based seller launching a toy building-block set at SAR 99 on Amazon.sa. It weighs 0.8 kg, ships with FBA and pays a 14% referral fee.
Its box is a little bigger than a shoebox. Each unit takes up 0.25 cubic feet of warehouse space.
Here's what Amazon pays you per sale under each referral offer:
| Referral offer on the SAR 99 toy | Referral fee | Payout per sale | Extra vs standard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard rate (14%) | SAR 13.86 | SAR 71.56 | – |
| 30% Saudi launch discount | SAR 9.70 | SAR 76.34 | SAR 4.78 |
| New-to-Prime (5%) | SAR 4.95 | SAR 81.81 | SAR 10.25 |
Payout is after the SAR 10 FBA fee and 15% VAT on Amazon's fees. Now add the rest of the launch pack over your first 90 days:
| Incentive | Value in the first 90 days |
|---|---|
| New-to-Prime on your first 100 units | SAR 1,025 |
| FBA New Selection (30 units, 3 months, SAR 3 per cubic foot plus VAT) | SAR 77.63 |
| Sponsored Products credit (SAR 370 plus SAR 3,500) | SAR 3,870 |
| Total | SAR 4,972.63 |
That's close to SAR 5,000 on a single product, before you've earned a riyal of profit.
Then the brand bonus keeps paying. If you're in Brand Registry, SAR 100,000 of branded sales brings back up to SAR 5,000.

The same toy on Amazon.ae tells a similar story. New-to-Prime lifts the payout from AED 73.42 to AED 82.78. Over 100 units, that's AED 936.
Add free storage and the AED 3,700 ad credit, and the launch pack is worth about AED 4,700.
Want to test your own product? Change the price, category and size here:
Marketplace fee calculator
Amazon.sa, Amazon.ae and noon: see what you keep from every sale
Minimum referral fee: SAR 1.00 per item.
The price the shopper pays.
Landed cost: product, freight, duty.
Your numbers
Payout per unit
SAR 89.18What the marketplace transfers to you
Profit per unit
SAR 37.55Margin: 36.0% of price excl. VAT
- Referral fee(14.0% of price)
- SAR 16.80
- FBA fulfillment fee
- SAR 10.00
- VAT on fees (15.0%)(reclaimable)
- SAR 4.02
- Total marketplace fees
- SAR 30.82
- Net VAT you remit
- SAR 11.63
- Product cost
- SAR 40.00
Where the price goes
- Referral14.0%
- Fulfillment8.3%
- VAT on fees3.3%
- Net VAT9.7%
- Product cost33.3%
- Profit31.3%
Excludes storage, ads, returns and promotions. Estimates based on published Amazon (Aug 2025) and noon (Sep 2026) rate cards, as of 26 October 2026. Confirm with the marketplace before pricing.
The full fee breakdown behind these numbers is in our guide to Amazon Middle East seller fees.
Which incentives can you combine?
Amazon says New Seller Incentives generally can't be stacked with other promotions. So the safe way to plan is to budget for less overlap, then treat anything extra as a bonus.
Here's how I'd build a launch budget:
- Count one referral-fee offer per sale. The 30% Saudi discount, the New-to-Prime rate, the brand bonus and the China voucher all reduce what you pay in referral fees. Price as if only one of them applies.
- Budget ad credit separately. It pays for clicks, not fees, so plan your first campaigns around it.
- Count free storage separately too. FBA New Selection covers a different fee from the referral offers.
- Treat China FBA cashback as a shipping saving. It's paid on units Amazon receives, not on sales.
So which fee offer should you hope for? On the first 100 units of a new FBA product, New-to-Prime saves more than the 30% discount. The 30% discount helps most on Easy Ship products and on sales beyond those first 100 units.
After your first settlement, check which offer Seller Central applied to each product.
Notes for Saudi-based sellers
You get the richest package, so use it:
- Register now, not in December. The 30% discount lasts 60 days. The offer period closes at the end of December.
- List fast. You need your first listings live within 20 days of opening your account.
- Mind the cap. The discount covers up to SAR 150,000 of sales, which most new accounts won't hit in 60 days.
- Get SABER first. Most products need a SABER certificate before they can sell, and it takes a few weeks.
Our Amazon Saudi Arabia seller guide covers documents, CR and Arabic listings.
Notes for UAE and Dubai sellers
The 30% discount doesn't apply in the UAE, but the core package does:
- Ad credit is your biggest win. It funds about 100 days of one campaign at the usual USD 10 daily budget.
- Dubai licence holders get more. The DET x Amazon Accelerator adds AED 2,000 in ad credit and six months of free professional support.
- One listing reaches the GCC. Amazon.ae exports to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar.
The licence, VAT and export details are in our Amazon UAE seller guide.
Notes for Chinese sellers
Amazon Global Selling China runs a separate 2026 package for brands selling into the Gulf:
- USD 50,000 prepaid referral voucher. It covers 5% of your first USD 1 million in branded sales. It's valid for a year.
- USD 1,000 Sponsored Products coupon. Use it within 90 days.
- FBA inbound cashback. You earn a fixed amount on every unit received, from SAR 1.28 for Small items to SAR 34.74 for Heavy & Bulky. The cap is SAR 3,754 per product on Amazon.sa and AED 3,672 on Amazon.ae.
- Who qualifies. First Gulf listing on or after 22 July 2025, the Professional plan, and Brand Registry within six months as the first registrant. Orders must ship by FBA from Gulf warehouses.
- How to claim the cashback. Enrol on the Seller Rewards page and ship with Send to Amazon. The button appears one to two weeks after your first stock goes live.
For example, 1,000 Medium units into Amazon.sa earn SAR 2,870 back. The Amazon Middle East guide for Chinese sellers covers registration and shipping from China.
Notes for sellers shipping from abroad
You still get the core package, but plan around customs:
- Amazon won't be your importer of record. Use your own Gulf entity or a forwarder's importer-of-record service, and ship DDP (duties paid).
- Book freight before you register. Stock stuck at the port burns your 90-day windows.
- Start FBA early. Two of the four core offers need FBA, so set up FBA in Saudi Arabia before your first shipment.
Every Amazon guide we publish sits in our Amazon Middle East hub.
Frequently asked questions
They're real savings, not a loan. Fee discounts come off the fees Amazon deducts from each sale, and ad credit pays for real clicks. The brand bonus is paid back into your account.
Sources & further reading
- New Sellers Fee Reduction terms and conditions (2026) — Amazon.sa
- Sell on Amazon.sa: new-seller incentives — Amazon.sa
- Sell on Amazon.ae: requirements, incentives and commercial licence — Amazon.ae
- Amazon.sa selling fees (FBA schedule from 1 Aug 2025) — Amazon.sa
- 2026 Middle East benefits for Chinese sellers — Amazon Global Selling China
This guide is for general information only and is not legal, tax or financial advice. Rules and fees change — always confirm with the official source or a licensed advisor.

Maya is MiddleEastEcom's lead guide and editor. She researches GCC marketplaces, payments and regulations and turns them into practical playbooks for sellers.
Meet Maya



